tomorrow marks ten years since the u.s. went to war in iraq over claims that the country was making weapons of mass destruction so what does the u.s. learn from this conflict blow have an iraq war report card coming up. did you know that the f.b.i. was using top secret letters to gather information about u.s. citizens from businesses a judge says the practice is unconstitutional and orders it to stop details on the secret of national security letters ahead. the u.s. says it's beefing up its missile defense systems on the west coast after a threat from north korea should the u.s. really be worried about north korea and is trying to pick a fight with washington r.t. questions more. it's monday march eighteenth five pm in washington d.c.

i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . we begin this hour with breaking news texas authorities just announced that an american couple will not be charged in the death of a three year old boy they adopted from russia is the district attorney in ecuador county said that his office would not file charges against allen and laura shatto in the january twenty first death of mack châteaux who was born maxim cruz the police say that the adoptive mother was told authorities she found maxim unresponsive outside the family's gardendale texas home he was pronounced dead shortly afterward at the hospital authorities ruled the boy's death was an accident after an autopsy report his death has become the latest flashpoint in the debate over whether american families should be allowed to adopt russian children russian authorities have blamed his death on quote inhumane treatment but his parents stand by his parents and they complain that they did not learn from shot to death until about a month later. now tomorrow marks ten years since the u.s.

aggression in iraq began in the decade since the war began a lot has actually changed in the country here's a rundown of the things that we know of in the country at least misleading the public check the bush administration said time and again that iraq was dangerous because it possessed weapons of mass destruction it was the very foundation on which the entire war was built today the bush administration and the world knows otherwise lack of transparency check the fact that the government will not disclose concrete numbers of how many iraqis civilians were actually killed during the years of aggression or even the true economic costs of war are testament to this point numbers of iraqi civilians killed range from fifty thousand to a round a million add another check for the violation of international law during the height of aggression the us used and left deeply to uranium in over three hundred

sites around iraq sickening thousands along the way birth defects and infant mortality in cities like fallujah have increased at a rate of five times higher than anywhere else depleted uranium which to this day has not been cleaned questionable business practices check the military's shady dealings with contractors like blackwater as well as the unexplained loss of at least nine billion dollars in the country highlights the fraud and waste that this war actually initiated post drawdown instability check just yesterday ten were killed and another sixty were wounded in a double car bombing in the southern city of basra another two dozen people that were killed by the car bomb in baghdad on march fifteenth these are just two incidents that are just the latest examples of the violence and instability that still plagues the region for more on the true legacy that the u.s. has left in iraq i was joined earlier by political analyst joel macaroon he begun

by commenting on whether or not we can consider it mission accomplished regarding the fact that we did in fact oust saddam hussein and see and there were no weapons of mass destruction here's what he had to say. in mission accomplished was we have different missions i think after two of the three the mission failed but i think after a dozen six we had a shift of strategy where were the coalition election the republican party lost the election you had guests coming up you had baker you had those this whole shift the surge but definitely we never found any weapons of mass destruction so the initial goal of the of the of the invasion that not the was not fulfilled somehow but the most important thing is we have to look back i think in the big picture of the invasion if you want to look back ten years or ten years now we see that iraq change washington as much as was the change in iraq you see how much there is concern you see you see that there you see it you see the risk of being involved

now in syria and elsewhere in the words you see the conservative party over the course of the fall but in general is much more weaker you see the conservative movement to these are going to buy this book about any international issue you see there's more worry about the debt and so i think it's was the most way to change if i look back on the longer so you just saw our list our checklist of what was actually done in iraq do you have anything to add on to that your quest no i think you covered basically pretty much of the main thing is you had a group of civilians who came into iraq who planned the invasion they say sideline the army is create a fiction so that inside the pentagon you had you had this friction still go on going to not going to. highlight it but on the more a longer term. you had the decision to go to war without any international cover without any basic cover on the long term you know after two thousand and six so.

you create you there was basically a dysfunctional country moving forward and as you say there was a lot of corruption and the destruction there we have all. with ten billion over with that somehow it was it was a mess somehow the family right so let's talk about modern day iraq one of the things that the u.s. did succeed out was shifting the power away from the cities and into the shia hands did this really create stability in the region it did not create but that if you remember the iraqi army was to spend you had the of fragmentation of the state so basically the only way forward was to create the sunni shiite you had the old guard the elements you had your own jumping in to do to explore the situation you had turkey also so basically they created a goal to be basically that looks like lebanon somehow where you have a different confessions fighting for power and definitely you had shared and before this one over the years from saddam hussein days you had the kurds who want their

own entity somehow so they created or iraq is also a big part in creating as the spokesman a system that it's impossible to take any decisions so if you have no power concentrated in an old maliki you have the goods to the bone for power you have the sunni side led now the gulf countries are from maliki the americans know that is the only want to deal with so it's a whole complicated region let's talk about i'll moloch you don't have that much time left but he's been in power since two thousand and six he said he will not run for a third term in twenty fourteen what does an iraq without all molecule look like it's hard to know who it was the strong man who really got out of those dozen six basically it's was the of when the americans wanted to make an indicted salute to the to the iranians to approve the role in iraq somehow so it was like in the arctic a deal to bring gratitude to power and he's been since trying to balance it between here and between the u.s.

at same time it's very hard mission to do recently he got more potent inside the sport the most probably if you really did not run for another election you have somebody close to him but the internal friction in iraq is open so i don't think if medical stays or not that will stop right we know there's a lot of people supporting and also i can't stand us in the u.s. as well as in iraq john macaroon our political analyst thank you for your opinions . the hunger strike in guantanamo bay is entering its sixth week can still there is no resolution in sight is started after detention facility officers began searching and in some cases seizing and confiscating personal belongings of detainees including their khurana omar the guy is a former get mowed detainee he spoke earlier today with r.t. international about his experience inside of the facility here's part of that interview. them anything bad things that happened then the beginning is there's a systematic torture where everyone goes to where they are. stripped out of their

clothes for example and they sometimes sexually abuse the physically abused like myself and others we were physically beaten up until as you can see my right eye has been the sight in my right eye has been lost they tried to god's both my eyes we never even were told what. a lead allegations against us we were questioned for hundreds of times and we were interrogated many many times and then we were released without any conviction we were never convicted we never had the chance to see the evidence against us the general set up and bush rumsfeld and dick cheney and all the other officials the lawyers who legalized torture and they justified the message is torture and they've spoken publicly in defending this kind of torture i think of course we hold these people responsible now obama and the all the other officials taking over there that the people there

were serious crimes committed inside on time of people don't realize that people were killed in certain i'm more than nine people were killed in terms of people that i know inmates were sexually abused they were people who have lost on the lost limbs amputated like colleges are some people were paralyzed throughout their lives and people lost their eyes these are serious crimes these are serious war crimes or crimes against captive people and these people have to come to justice if we let these people at large what would happen is that more atrocities like this would take place and they are examples of criminals committing crimes and just not paying back for their crimes that was former guantanamo bay detainee omar the guy is. well it looks like even the f.b.i. is subject to the rule of law a federal judge last week found that the f.b.i. has not been abiding by the constitution for years and is demanding for the agency

to change its ways so here's a rundown the f.b.i. has been writing hundreds of thousands of so-called national security letters to private businesses these letters demand for employers to disclose private information about their clients that would otherwise require a warrant or a subpoena in order to obtain essentially it's the f.b.i.'s way of skirting around court orders the agency even tried to hide the letters by preventing businesses from even talking about them but that's no longer the case here to explain why i'm joined by kurt opes all senior staff attorney at the electronic frontier foundation hey there kurt so first of all let's start off with why are these letters so so controversial with these letters are somewhat of a precedent in the american system because that allows for a demand of information from a telecommunications provider without a warrant without a court being involved and are you happy with that the judge's response she didn't rule this unconstitutional do you think that it actually went far enough well

absolutely if the court found that they were unconstitutional and said the f.b.i. can the issue of the letters in this case our case and in any other case so it's finding that the statute itself violates the constitution so tell me a little bit more about your client's case and what you're hoping to get out of this. well we as i think everybody expects the government will appeal so we'll take this up to the next level the ninth circuit court of appeals and then perhaps to the supreme court and get the court to say finally whether this type of letter is constitutional we believe that it is not in the court will agree now the judge's decision addressed several constitutional issues she found with these n.f.l. letters and her decision she said quote moreover there is no evidence before the code court that congress will still be concerned about the constitutional deficiencies after it had taken steps to address some of the constitutional

infirmities found by district courts in the second circuit rather it appears that in amending and reenacting the sasuke as it did congress was concerned with giving government the broadest powers possible to issue an assault disclosure orders and preclude searching judicial review of the same and so was congress helping the f.b.i. skirt around the courts. will soon after the last time the statute was found to be unconstitutional congress went and amended the statute made a few changes that were trying to address the constitutional infirmity but as the judge noted last friday those steps were not sufficient and it remained unconstitutional so how far up the chain the that this go this in this manner of supporting these waters. well i mean these letters have been around for a long time and just really since the patriot act that they have been very widely used getting up into the hundreds of thousands of letters you know one of the

biggest issues here is so few people challenge them they are designed to be issued in secret they come along with a gag order and that's really the basis of the unconstitutionality here that people who receive them aren't allowed to talk about it and it really hasn't been able to be part of the public debate so a lot of politicians are supporting them because i think they don't really know how they're being misused and that's a very interesting point that you brought up and also the point of the sheer volume of letters that are actually being issued its are shocking to say the least i want to bring up some of the letters this is the this is from the department of justice in two thousand and three over thirty nine thousand went out in two thousand and six almost fifty thousand were sent out and in two thousand and eleven over sixteen thousand were fine stance and sent out so you had mentioned that it takes so long for for anyone to really address this why is that. so many of these recipients they get the letter they see the gag order they don't say anything about it and comply despite the constitutional in for many years you know our client here really is.

quite brave to come forth and challenge the government on this and look forward to the day when it can talk about it really and finally curt should these letters be banned altogether doesn't essentially create a society of spies for the f.b.i. . well i think these letters they take the court out of the process and one of the things that because very important for the rule of law for due process is to have courts involved before companies can be required to give up information about their users to make sure that it's a proper request and not a misuse of government power do you think that a lot actually slow down the information gathering process or damage national damage national security interests by maybe possibly one day outing these letters altogether i don't think actually outing these letters will damage national security issues i mean we may find some abuse but tightening governmental abuse does not damage national security and it enhances the democratic process which

keeps our country strong curd oaks all senior staff attorney at the electronic frontier foundation thank you fer insight thank you the california coastline is going to get a little more cluttered soon u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel has ordered the military to beef up its missile interceptor system on the west coast all in the fear that north korea would launch a nuclear attack fourteen missile interceptors will be added by the year of twenty seventeen as a precautionary measure here's how it will work if north korea launches a missile for the u.s. several of these interceptors would be launched and fly over the sea and smash into the missile causing it to explode over the sea potentially saving millions of lives if it works properly to explain more about this military ramp up and join earlier by aleksandr toma to the nuclear nonproliferation expert and a fellow at the truman national security project i began by asking her how imminent

the threat from north korea really is. if you look at it this is a pattern for north korea this is not something new that they've vacillated back and forth between peace and bellicose sort of warnings and so we shouldn't be shocked about this i think that with the new leader coming in he wants to establish himself as a military leader as well and i think this is part of that that stance that he's having forward but how imminent is a threat realistically as i think many of your viewers may have seen this week and president obama said that there isn't an imminent threat but we would rather not have the risk and we want to hedge on the side of the margin call now to respond to threat like this are we threatening north korea ourselves or are we provoking them are we acknowledge what they're doing we're absolutely acknowledging what they're doing we are doing military exercises with our allies the south koreans but that's a normal thing that we do we're certainly working with again our our neighbors in

that reason the russians and the chinese as well and i think we actually need to be more of that to be clear with those in the region that this is something that's normal that the u.s. is doing these exercises and to make clear our intent at the plough mysie we've done those exercises for quite some time every year but really ramping up this missile defense system what type of a message are we sending to north korea i think i mean it's not really ramping up it's the european phased adaptive approach this is where we talk about putting missiles in poland and obviously again with your with your audience the russians were not too happy about that but. indicates it's adaptive we're adapting to new realities so we're not we're not ramping anything us we're just adapting to and responding to the north koreans ok i do want to play a quick sound bite it's president obama talking about iran and the threat that iran poses. no we think that you would take the you're. actually develop

a nuclear weapon. so the american military is it taking its eye off the ball here by focusing on north korea which one really poses more imminent of a threat i think i mean i think the president made. very clear remarks and neither paper poses more of a threat i think we need to look at all threats and look at them equally and circumstances change i mean we have to respond as these circumstances change we did not know that the north koreans would would do another missile test another nuclear test and so that's the way we're responding ok now the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is admiral james when i felt he said that the system is meant to dissuade the north koreans but really. is it possible that this type of system could provide a false sense of security that's a good question i think that in working with our allies as i mentioned in the region the japanese and others i think we are working with them to let them know

what the what the security is what we can provide and what we can't provide and as long as we're clear and transparent i think we're trying to do that i think everyone will be on the same page and everything will be fine that was aleksandra tomaz she's a nuclear nonproliferation expert and truman national security project fellow. well it's one of the more on comfortable conversations couples have to have at one point or another in their relationships sexual history and sexually transmitted diseases the fact is an increasing number of americans both old and young are afflicted by any range of diseases it's becoming so much of a problem that the center for disease control estimates the costs of americans at ten billion dollars per year to deal with r.t. correspondent liz wall reports. and outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases is plaguing the nation if your sexual activity you probably will have at least one sexually transmitted infection in your sexual life time according to

a new report from the centers for disease control a hundred ten million people in the u.s. are infected and twenty million new people contract a sexually transmitted infection each year these are the eight most common diseases the c.d.c. looked at topping the list of the most prevalent hiv chlamydia trickle monogamous and genital herpes the human papilloma virus or h.p.v. is by far the most common infection transmitted by sex doctor to make augustus is the director of o.b. g.y.n. at the med star washington hospital center she says h.p.v. cases are driving the numbers up there's a lot more cases of h.p.v. especially women. to young adult symptoms can include genital warts but they don't always show up when a person carries the virus in serious cases h.p.v. can lead to cervical cancer in women half of the newly infected are young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty four students they live in an area where

they are engaging in high respect paver just because they're having sex with one another so that creates a pool of disease that set more risks for people getting infected well figures show that sexually transmitted diseases have skyrocketed physicians point out we're screening a little bit more often and so i think we're also picking up a cup worker says what's clear is with sexually transmitted diseases rampant in the u.s. almost everyone that is sexually active is at risk of getting infected the invincibility of risk that this may not happen to me but will happen to someone else the c.d.c. estimates sexually transmitted infections cost sixteen billion dollars a year and medical costs sexually transmitted diseases come as significant physical psychological and fine. it will cost but all of it can be prevented and we have the numbers and the data to back us up to say this is really a problem so let's work towards i think education that means spreading awareness

and using protection in washington. well it's been more than a week since sixteen year old kamani gray died in a storm of police bullets in flatbush brooklyn. controversy swirls over whether new york police officer shot the young man in response to a great pulling out a gun or just adjusting his belt strap his community in brooklyn has been a scene of protests in response to the shooting which have resulted in more than fifty arrests now the two policeman who fired eleven rounds have been named sergeant mo red most read an officer. this isn't the first time the two in my pretty officers have come under questioning regarding their actions in uniform sergeant and has been named in three federal lawsuits and officer card into all five of the lawsuits alleged civil rights violations and ultimately cost new york

city about two hundred fifteen thousand dollars to settle currently both of them have been placed on desk duty but gray's death has created more responses than that gray's high school principal matt willoughby wrote about the sophomore and his dedication to learning he said quote my hope is that as a community we can agree that the death of anyone so young is tragic whether this test result in any policy or tactical changes on behalf of the n.y.p.d. or flatbush community remains to be seen. and speaking of the n.y.p.d. late last week the new york police department hit a milestone the five million stop and frisk the stop and frisk procedure is when police officers stop civilians they suspect of criminal activity on the street and passed them down all without a warrant today in new york federal judge started hearing testimony from a class action lawsuit that calls this practice unconstitutional the n.y.p.d.

says that stop and frisk has resulted in decreased violence and that police need to be able to use their discretion to identify and approach suspicious people but the lawsuit claims that these suspicions are based on prejudice a large majority of the people stop and frisk after all are young african-american and latino men of those frist eighty eight percent walk away without arrest so this trial will get at the heart of whether these stops are necessary to prevent violent crime or whether they are unconstitutional and counterproductive the trial is expected to last a month and one hopes in y.p. practices in the future but stop and frisk isn't the only controversial matter on police docket these days are to correspondent margaret how old took a look at some of the recent examples of police brutality. how many innocent u.s. citizens were killed by police officers this year shockingly there are no hard numbers on the subject but here's what we do know at times cops are authorized to

beat maim and in some cases kill law abiding citizens the us constitution guarantees americans the freedom to peaceably assemble still individuals link to social movements like occupy have been bullied by local law enforcement police officers attempting to break up occupy protest like these at berkeley often showed up in riot gear armed with pepper spray and baton and many cases police sprayed protesters in the face and hauled them to jail remember that these citizens are unarmed and well within the laws to peacefully protest and assemble. occupiers aren't alone in the past year we found seven concrete examples of police brutality resulting in serious injury or death here are two of these examples on december twenty first of two thousand and twelve sammy davis was shot and killed by a cop in georgia as he stood in the grocery store parking lot asking customers for

spare change the officer who killed him had a link the disciplinary file in his department and a history of excessive force against citizens here is davis' sister talking to local media there's a problem with leadership that we keep somebody like i was sworn to protect. me because i did do that innocent person. another example brain and bradshaw iraq war veteran and father of three young children was shot and killed by a member of the local sheriff's department in bowling green kentucky the bailiff is claiming self-defense but bradshaw was shot point blank in the head while seated in this car as for the bailiff while he was placed on administrative leave pending investigation and not arrested three hundred gathered in the streets to bring awareness about where in this case does the law protect us citizens from the savage cruelty of cops this abuse of power goes far beyond to serve and protect just you gave them that right in washington murder howel r t. well she's barrack

sarah palin my made quite an intrinsic at the annual conservative political action conference over the weekend when she made her way on stage with an unusual prop. to say. that so right a big gulp the former alaska governor turned her focus to new york city mayor michael bloomberg and his proposals on banning large sugary drinks from city restaurants it was a small part of her thirty minute speech but it left the crowd thirsty for more and looks like this tea partiers still has a sweet tooth for the limelight and that's going to do it for now but if you missed any part of today show you are in luck we pose all of our interviews online in full

just go to youtube dot com slash r t america and for the latest information on the stories we cover today and a few that we just didn't have time to get to check out our website or to dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez my question to twitter followers tonight ten years after the iraq war what lessons has u.s. learned from our aggressions in the country or what lessons should we draw from this war we are responses your comments could be featured in our eight pm show and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for our special coverage on the anniversary of the iraq war now breaking the set is coming up at the top of the hour manuel rob lowe will be guest hosting the show so it's an exciting day on breaking the set today he'll be taking a critical look at the protests in brooklyn and in the wake of the death of the sixteen year old kamani gray and he'll be asking if the n.y.p.d. policies are really the best that we can do that's coming up in half an hour.